Friday, January 8, 2010

Kalanchoe blossfeldiana has now been mentioned a few times at PATSP, and every single time, I seem to feel the need to tell you that I have no strong feelings about these whatsoever. I know this because that's what I was tempted to write this time, but it seemed familiar, so I searched the blog, and found that I'd done that already. Multiple times.

So does anybody else have any strong feelings about K. blossfeldiana I could borrow for a little while? Positive or negative, it doesn't matter. I promise to return the feelings in more or less their original condition.

How about a twofer? In bloom: nix, overdone, ugly and - for me - extremely temporary. However, I picked up a couple of dismal limp pieces off the table at the end of a plant sale and stuck them on my deck where I ignored them all summer. That was three years ago. You have never seen a more gorgeous pot full of foliage! They are farmed out to someone with a sunny bathroom for the winter and then come back to the wild life of my remote cabin for the summer. And not one flower ever which is ok with me. High marks for lush foliage and stunning form.

Arg, does HATE count as a feeling! My darned Kalanchoe got the worst scale/mealy bug infection, which I spent hours cleaning with q-tips, and of course it hasn't bloomed since it was purchased. I don't know why I bothered taking clean cuttings I should have let it die, worthless plant.

I dislike them every bit as much as I dislike poinsettias. Impossible to get to bloom again (oh, I know the theory, but I'm too lazy/undisciplined to make it work in practise) and they drop leaves, get ugly and leggy... and even when they're in bloom - I don't see what's so great about those flowers. The best thing I can say about them is that they don't have milky sap that leaves hard-to-remove stains.Then again, they're kinda succulent, and I dislike succulents, so I suppose it evens out.

I love them. They are like foliar fireworks, always cheery, long period of bloom, resistant to being killed by neglectful gardeners..I always have a couple of them lurking around the house, and if they start to falter, I put them outside for the summer, or for the killing cold, depending on the time of year.

I am learning to grow them now. I am having 2 Kalanchoes with red flowers, one single and the other with double flowers that like very tiny roses. Hopefully, I won't kill them with overwatering! Here's a case where neglect is better that overcarring. Let's see.

I liked the plant when it bloomed. Got it from supermarket sold for a very good price.But never got it bloomed again. The plant almost died but I managed to revive it again propagating the cuttings. It survived for many months but never once bloomed, eventually I never bothered to continue with the cuttings and it matured and died.Wonder what is the secret?

I have a weak spot for succulents in general and kalanchoes are one of my absolute favorites. My mom bought one from a greenhouse a few years back in Autumn for 50 cents (sale because it was dying). There were three shoots, each about a foot tall and leafless with little clusters of leaves at the top. It was one of the ugliest plants I have ever seen. The following summer I buried the bare stalks up to the leaves and put it on my back porch. It exploded with growth after that and is gorgeous. Gotta love how easily they form adventitious roots. :)

Just so you know:

Infrequently Asked Questions

Have questions about PATSP? See the Infrequently Asked Questions post, or ask directly by e-mail. To e-mail, remove the two "d"s from the below address:

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The thoughts, opinions, life choices, etc. discussed in this blog are those of its author, and are not necessarily endorsed by his former employer, nor were they ever necessarily endorsed by his former employer before she was former. In fact, I'm pretty sure we disagreed about a lot of stuff, which was additional incentive not to discuss anything that didn't relate pretty directly to plants. And as far as it goes, we disagreed about a fair amount of stuff directly relating to plants, too.

In any case. Nothing in this blog should be taken to represent my former employer's views on anything, except for the few things explicitly identified as her opinions, and even then it's possible I've misunderstood or exaggerated what her actual views were. So if you want to know what she thinks about stuff you should just ask her.